


He Wished a Lot of Things

by shiterature



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: FTM, FTM Severus Snape, FTM Snape, Fluffy, Happy Ending?, M/M, One Shot, only a little bit nsfw, snupin - Freeform, trans snape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:15:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28033752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiterature/pseuds/shiterature
Summary: Remus Lupin notices that Severus Snape has scars. Because he feels they may be in a similar situation, he's intent on knowing why.
Relationships: Remus Lupin/Severus Snape
Comments: 11
Kudos: 105





	He Wished a Lot of Things

He saw them first in his second year as the boy stepped out of the showers, a towel wrapped around his waist and his chest entirely exposed. Beneath the long black hair, whose water-dripping tendrils had been strategically placed over his chest, Remus Lupin could have sworn he had just laid his eyes upon two long, red scars.

The image kept him awake at times. He never asked; he knew Severus Snape was touchy to talk to in the first place, and scars — which he knew from personal experience — were even touchier. So he kept himself quiet, feeling different about the boy from then on, wondering about the newfound mystery of him every time their eyes met from across a classroom. But the question remained, and so did the scars.

‘How did you get them?’ he scrawled eventually on a piece of parchment after weeks of grappling with the thought, passing the letter casually across the long table in the Charms room and slipping it under his thin fingers. It took what felt like years to get a simple reply; one in such elegant cursive that his own handwriting looked like aimless ink above it.

‘Get what?’

Such a fruitless answer. But Remus wasn’t expecting much else. He tagged along almost every day as his friends taunted the boy; of course his responses would be slow and guarded.

‘The scars,’ he wrote back, and then, because he knew that Severus was more often injured by others than by accidents, he revised his question. ‘Who did it to you?’

He watched in anticipation as Snape contemplated the words, scribbling something below them but not giving the square of parchment back. The wait was endless. The class was the longest Remus had ever attended.

But he was answered when they left the classroom as the hour marked the end of the lecture, Severus catching him by the door and shoving the piece of paper back into his grip.

“Biology did this to me, Remus,” he said plainly. “Now get out of my way.”

Snape pushed past Lupin, his green-accented robes flowing behind as he hurried down the hall. Remus watched in puzzlement, slowly unfolding the parchment and wondering what the boy’s answer was even supposed to mean. Biology gave him scars? He couldn’t have been born with them; they looked far too fresh.

Looking down at the parchment, Remus gave a small laugh. Severus had taken the past thirty minutes to draw a werewolf in the bottom lefthand corner, tongue lolled out, heart-eyed as it reached up at the moon. The moon, which Remus noted with another charmed giggle, wore a subtle frown in its center.

He didn’t ask about the scars again for years.

—

He saw them again in the courtyard, but really only because he was looking for them. They had faded a lot since Year Two, and he wouldn’t have noticed had he not previously known.

James Potter had picked another brawl with him, and, in embarrassment after realising that he was losing, had hexed the boy’s shirt off. His hair, shoulder-length now, wasn’t long enough to conceal the traces that were left, and Remus found himself staring. Studying. Almost forgetting where he was. He tried to piece together the puzzle of the two faint red lines across Snape’s ribs, following them from left to right, over and over, looped like a scratched record.

And this didn’t go unnoticed. Severus Snape, trying his best not to squirm under the humiliating attention, stared back.

Remus looked away.

—

“Why do you have scars?”

He had found him in the library, sitting in the farthest aisle from the entry, completely empty aside from the two of them and the slight traces of a mild mouse problem.

Severus narrowed his eyes, slipping a ribbon in to mark his current progress in his book and turning around to face Lupin with a look of blank scorn.

“Since when did the lore behind my physical attributes become your affair?” he hissed. “It isn’t difficult to avoid inquiry about a potentially sensitive subject.”

“Mm,” Remus replied, less morally driven than his usual as he remained phlegmatic against the very fair point. “Luckily, the nerves on one’s chest are often not very sensitive at all, causing related issues to not hurt much in the least aside from inward intrusion.”

“Insightful,” Severus replied snarkily, closing his book and tucking it under his arm. “Charming that my skin is so important to you. If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect you were interested.”

He stood up, and Remus, although towering over him in terms of height, felt suddenly very small.

“But I am interested,” he choked out, clearly missing the meaning behind the term. Snape closed his eyes and sighed with a deep and tired sense of resignation.

“My scars were put there by none other than myself,” he replied. “Don’t be concerned by this; I’m not actively suicidal and the process was beneficial, if anything. Incredibly safe.”

And he left. Remus said nothing. Somehow, although given more information, the situation became even more cryptic, and he understood less and less as he went.

But that was what Snape was. To him, anyway, the boy was an enigma first and an interest second. There was nothing else to it, and nothing else to him. Ambiguity and nothing else. Ambiguity and scars.

—

Remus saw Severus again at the Yule Ball, not like he was difficult to spot, being the only person there in all black, a sleek tunic covering his scarred frame.

“You really went for a new look, didn’t you?” he found himself asking snidely, smirking at the lack of change in his clothing. “That shade of black is just a touch lighter than usual. That’s a big step for you.”

“That shade of unwelcome involvement still hasn’t left your repertoire, however,” Severus was quick to reply. “I’ve been here for three minutes and you’ve shown up already. I should have stayed back and studied like I wanted to.”

A reply left Lupin’s lips before he could filter it out. It was disjointed, random, almost desperate, hitting them both head-on and leaving Severus more shocked than he’d ever inherently been.

“Dance with me.”

There was a silence, the soft motion of a punch glass being set down on tablecloth, and a shocked verbal receipt.

“What?”

Remus knew he couldn’t back out of his own words. He was too timid; too stubborn to admit to anything as a fault.

Giving a slight bow, he held out his hand as the music picked up. An offering, for once, that wasn’t ill-intended.

Tentatively, like a lamb accepting slaughter, the boy’s hand slipped into his.

—

“Potter can’t know.”

Snape whispered it through feverish kisses, leaning back against a pillar in the corridor as Remus lost sight of his own reserve, grasping at his shoulders, his hair, anything he could possibly bring closer to himself.

“James,” he corrected, pulling them both around the corner in the hall as he noticed the faint sound of a stray student’s footsteps, “won’t suspect a thing.”

—

“Good riddance to this bloody school,” Remus heard Sirius scoff as they packed their suitcases for the last time, all carrying diplomas and wearing flashy hats. Remus always found the hats silly, but he saw now why people were so fond of them when they left.

“Is James already back home? I know Peter left last night and I haven’t seen either of them since,” Lupin said, opening the dorm dresser drawers and forcing the last of his sweaters inside his case.

“Yeah. I think they took the last available train together yesterday,” Black replied. “Shame. We could have all left together like the years before. Like old times. This is the last time we’ll be leaving as students, you know.”

A small crunch came from under one of Lupin’s sweaters as he nodded in response. “Yeah,” he said. “Shame indeed. I’ll miss these memories. This school. It’s become my home, you know. And these last few hours…”

Pulling out a crumpled piece of parchment from under his sweater, Remus paused as he saw a faded pair of handwriting styles and a silly illustration of a werewolf. His heart jumping in his chest, he put the drawing back under the sweater and closed his suitcase, picking it up and preparing to leave.

“…this is it.”

Sirius took their things to be loaded onto the train. Remus himself spent a good hour wandering the halls, so empty, so familiar, wishing them all a sincere goodbye. He scanned the small groups of people that were still left, hoping somewhere in the back of his head that the artist of the drawing under his shirt would still be in the building somewhere.

He wanted to speak to him. To ask him about what he would be doing in the war. To offer his address; to offer connection. But he didn’t find the boy anywhere, nor did he find a trace of him. No vandalised books, no cursive notes, and nobody in a sleek black tunic.

He was told by Horace Slughorn to check the library. He thanked him, but insincerely; he’d already looked there, and it was empty.

—

If he knew where Snape resided, he would have shown up. Written, at least. But all he had was the drawing. That was all he had for years. For a long time, he wasn’t even sure the man still existed.

November of 1981 left him connectionless and alone. He felt himself slipping into nothing, the sand of eternity slowly rising over his head until he couldn’t breathe. Every day was a nightmare.

He relied on the Prophet for his entertainment, for his distraction. Anything to make him forget, even for a moment. Anything at all.

And then something did make him forget that he was alone. An announcement that one couldn’t look past. That he couldn’t, anyway.

It wasn’t a major headline, but it was on the bottom left of the front page, announced in capital bold letters with a small, grainy picture too blurry to decipher.

HOGWARTS POTIONS PROFESSOR HORACE SLUGHORN REPLACED IN POSITION BY SEVERUS SNAPE

Immediately, without even thinking, Remus threw the paper on the floor, stood up, and grabbed his coat.

—

“I’d like to see Professor Snape.”

He was directed down to the dungeons, which he approached slowly, stopping for minutes on end to stare at the architecture he’d almost forgotten; the arcs and pillars that he grew up between. He didn’t need a map of this place. His feet knew the way down the spiral staircase. His very skeleton understood the path necessary for the destination of Slughorn’s old office.

He knocked on the door three times. It opened just before he could knock a fourth.

They were both still for a long time.

The response was quiet.

“Lupin.”

Remus wasn’t sure whether to stay or leave. He felt uncomfortable to be once again under the confusing gaze of Severus Snape.

“I saw your name in the Prophet,” he said plainly. “I’m… sorry to intrude. If you want me to go, I—”

“How very timidly-mannered to leave upon an inkling of silence,” Snape said, attempting to sound scornful, but his tone was weak; almost relieved. As he stepped aside to let Lupin into the room, Remus understood with a sudden sort of mental blow that Snape had just recently lost all of his connections, too.

He walked softly inside, taking one step to the left as Severus closed the door behind him. And then, jokingly:

“Potter can’t know.”

Sadly, they laughed.

— 

Lupin didn’t even ask to see him anymore. He just walked right in.

Snape provided him with an extra key, one he used often for their weekly rendezvous, once leaving a toothbrush there on accident and never bothering to take it home again. Little by little, the visits became normal, essential, even. They became fueled by connection, by touch, by everything they had lost since graduation.

Little by little, they’d see more of one another. Day by day, Snape would unbutton his sleeves just a little more, finally comfortable enough to show the grotesque mark on his wrist, and Lupin would wear his shirts a little looser, exposing the scars on his neck as they led up to the ones on his jaw and nose. Closeness was their comfort, and they’d revel in it like Shakespearean kings, like Duncan of Scotland, doomed as he was, surrounded by the small joys of his imperfect world and his tarnished reign. Though their environment was muddled by blades of wilted and bloodied grass, the small fireflies within, the light that, although rare, warmed the hands and entranced the eyes like none other, were what they noticed the most.

They one day found themselves undoing the clasps of one another’s shirts, their kisses slow and even, their breaths soft. Lupin’s hands found themselves running across the bare skin of Snape’s chest, smooth, oddly hairless, comfortingly warm. His fingers found themselves on his ribcage. They lived there. And then they stopped.

Although they were almost completely invisible, his hands had found the scars. Scars that, over time, he had forgotten about. 

Running his fingers over the rough lines, he looked down at them, and then back up at Severus, who had a sudden expression of what seemed almost like terror.

Remus gave them another examination. He noticed their placement, their edges, how each one stretched in a long like under his pectorals, as if something had been above them that was removed.

And then he understood.

His breath catching in his throat, Remus realised that there was so much about this man he didn’t know. There were struggles that he and his friends had only added to. Parts of him and his life that he never got to see.

He understood then why Snape was built the way he was, why his waist was thin around the center and wider around the hips, why his neck was sleek and his collarbones strong, why his skin was smooth and had a significant lack of hair. He understood why he never saw him shaving and never noticed forgotten stubble on the curves of his jaw. He understood why he would hide his chest with his long hair after a shower; why he said that biology was what gave him these marks in the first place. He understood why he hid himself with tight, concealing clothes and why he would shy away from the connected questions.

All at once, Remus understood the scars.

Quietly, softly, he placed a hand on Snape’s back, pulling him as close as he possibly could. He watched the scared, vulnerable eyes below him and, in an instant, wished he could undo everything he and his friends had ever done to him. He wished he could have supported him; kept himself from prying. He wished a lot of things.

“They don’t define you, you know,” he said eventually, his thumb tracing Snape’s bottom lip as he stroked his hair. “It took me years to understand that about myself, but it’s true. It’s true for me, and it’s true for you.”

Severus looked like the most fragile thing on Earth.

“Do you find them distasteful?” he whispered out, leaning his face into Remus’ bare shoulders, self-directed venom behind his every syllable. “Do they drive you away, knowing about them? About why they’re here?”

“Hey,” Lupin replied, soft as he hugged him close and leaned his chin on the top of his head. “Don’t worry.”

He held him as if it was the last time he ever would. He didn’t let go. He wouldn’t let himself. Fighting back a newfound wave of emotion, he closed his eyes and wished he could articulate how little this knowledge would change anything. How Severus was just as beautiful to him as he had always been. How he didn’t care about the body he used to have or what he used to be, because, to Remus, he was still Severus Snape. He was always Severus Snape, and he always had been, and he always would be, no matter what. 

Always.

Still, words were never his strong suit. Emotions never left his lips in prose. So what he said was barely as elegant, not even close to what he wanted to communicate.

But what he said communicated it well enough, because, once he spoke them, they both turned into a crumbling mess of tears and sniffles, holding one another as tightly as they both could manage. His heart thudding in his chest, his breath hitched with a feeling he couldn’t describe, he chose a very decent thing to say. A thing that left them in a very peaceful silence for a very long time.

It was a whisper. And it was safe.

“I have scars, too.”


End file.
